Our China Law Blog Social Media Empire

We created a China Law Blog Group on LinkedIn to provide a spam-free forum for China networking, information and discussion. We are nearing 11,500 members and the number and — most importantly — the quality of our discussions continues to increase as well.

We have had some great discussions, as evidenced by their numbers (discussions occasionally get more than one hundred comments) and their substance. Our discussions range from the practical (“how do I open a China bank account” or ”what do I need to do to comply with China’s new work visa policies for foreigners” or “what are you hearing about China’s crackdown on xyz?”) to the ethereal (“when will China surpass the West in innovation?”)

The group’s diversity is its greatest strength. We have a large contingent of members who live and work in China and many who operate businesses there. Our LinkedIn Group also has many members who do business with China from the United States, Australia, Canada, Europe, Africa, the Middle East and from other countries within Asia. Many of our group members are China lawyers (both inside and outside China and both in-house and with private law firms) but the overwhelming majority are not. We have senior personnel from large and small companies and a whole host of junior personnel as well, again, both within China and outside China. We have professors and we have students of all levels. This mix helps inform, elevate and enlighten the discussions.

Perhaps of most importance is how we block anything and everything that resembles spam. We have become so proficient at this that virtually nobody even tries any more to inject spam into any of our discussions. Many of our members have commented on how much they appreciate our vigorous no-spam policy. I assure you that will never change or even moderate.

If you want to learn more about doing business in China or with China, if you want to discuss China law or business, or if you want to network with others doing China law or business, I urge you to check out our China Law Blog Group on LinkedIn and join up. The more people who do join our China Law Blog LinkedIn group, the better our discussions. Don’t be shy; click here and join us!

And if you are a Facebook person, we can accommodate you there as well and I urge you to check out our rapidly growing China Law Blog Facebook page. Our focus there is on anything and everything that is China relevant. Our goals with our Facebook page are to entertain and to educate and to highlight issues that for various reasons we cannot discuss elsewhere; our Facebook page most certainly does not shy away from controversy. It also most emphatically covers more than just China law and China business. We post on China politics and diplomacy, China culture and history, China travel and tourism, China food and fashion. We post on pretty much anything we find interesting that day. And we give a lot of rope to the comments and that means we sometimes (like just this morning) get complaints about them from our readers. But we are of the view that you are big kids and recognize that it is not our role to protect you from what others might say. We are rapidly approaching 17,000 “likes” of that page (and growing at approximately 1,000 a month) so so we must be doing something right. Anyway, please check out our Facebook page too, by clicking here.

And last and least, after a three year hiatus, I went back on Twitter and I even every so often post on there as well. Click here for that.

I am a founder of Harris Bricken, an international law firm with lawyers in Los Angeles, Portland, San Francisco, Seattle, China and Spain.

I mostly represent companies doing business in emerging market countries. It has taken me many years to build my network and it takes constant communication and travel to maintain it. My work has been as varied as securing the release of two improperly held helicopters in Papua New Guinea, setting up a legal framework to move slag from Canada to Poland’s interior, overseeing hundreds of litigation and arbitration matters in Korea, helping someone avoid terrorism charges in Japan, and seizing fish product in China to collect on a debt.

I was named as one of only three Washington State Amazing Lawyers in International Law, I am AV rated by Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory (its highest rating), I am rated 10.0 by AVVO.com (its highest rating), and I am a SuperLawyer.

I am a frequent writer and public speaker on doing business in Asia and I constantly travel between the United States and Asia. I most commonly speak on China law issues and I am the lead writer of the award winning China Law Blog (www.chinalawblog.com). Forbes Magazine, Fortune Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, Investors Business Daily, Business Week, The National Law Journal, The Washington Post, The ABA Journal, The Economist, Newsweek, NPR, The New York Times and Inside Counsel have all interviewed me regarding various aspects of my international law practice.

About China Law Blog

We will be discussing the practical aspects of Chinese law and how it impacts business there. We will be telling you what works and what does not and what you as a businessperson can do to use the law to your advantage. Our aim is to assist businesses already in China or planning to go into China, not to break new ground in legal theory or policy.